Hey readers! Here you have a new interview to read. This time is about an European skateboard manufacturer! Cirus Skateboards , a Hungarian skateboard manufacturer from skateboarders for skateboarders. A must read, check it out!
First of all , tell us when and how did you first get into skateboarding?
I was about 13-14 years old, when I bought my first second hand, very used Acme deck with slick layer on the bottom. At that time it took roughly 1 year to spare quite some money to buy a complete new Powell deck. The most interesting fact is, at that time I payed the same amount of money as I would do nowdays. Meaning, skateboarding was 3-4 times more expensive at that time then today.
Favorite riders?
I cannot be biased. At this moment we are sponsoring 2 guys in Hungary, Zsolt Karkossiák and Zoltán Tűri (freestyle). So, they are my favorites.
Are you skating nowadays?
With street decks just when I am testing my new construction, or taking out randomly a deck from production to check quality. With longboard more frequently, I have a special longboard shape deck, called Natadola, I do skating with that one.
Tell us about your company CIRUS skateboards ,how this adventure was born…Explain what inspired you to start this company and when this project has started?
My profession is carpenter and I always loved working with wood, I decided to start producing own skateboards because of the above mentioned high deck prices to make it available for more teenager at reasonable price.
Around 8 years ago I made my first decks from maple. I soon realized that if I order blank decks from other manufacturers, and sell them under my own brand –name, I cannot guarantee quality products. In addition I wanted to come up with my own shape and design, so only one of these reasons would have been enough for me to consider to start my own production of skateboards. As far the maple I went as far as to choose the maple (Acer Pseodoplatanus as a local species, similar to Acer Saccharum – sugar/hard/rock mapple) logs myself here in Hungary. Of course there were some promising results, but since I had not started this because of business reasons, it took me two other testing series when I dared to tell I was going in the right direction. It was also quite disturbing that during production there were some very good series but that high quality could not be provided continuously in Hungary, because renewal of the wood was extremely slow and inhomogeneous. I had to choose whether I lower down my professional drive and make medium quality boards or I needed to find another way.
The new direction was the usage of bamboo.
Why the name CIRUS?
My dog’s (Rottweiler) name was Cirus.
Your company is based in the middle of Europe in Hungary..How is the skateboarding scene there (there are also some big contests during the year..) ?
You might laugh, but many times I was informed about the events, contests from Hungary via your site. But there are couple of big events like Erzsi Skate Cup and OSG as well known in the surrounding countries, too.
In your personal opinion, how has the skateboarding scene in your country changed over the years and what is it like now?
So far we were focusing more on production in the last couple of years, and unfortunately we couldn’t follow up what is actually went on, what kind of competitions, fairs, exhibitions are in Hungary. Learning from that, in this year we will participate in OSG, as exhibitor, what have developed significantly in the last 2-3 years.
Tell us about the wood and the materials you use in your manufacturer
One of the the reason was that we started to use bamboo, that it is very strong and has a dense fiber structure. Its tensile strength is huge and is a much stronger material than the maple.
Second reason was that we don’t want to be the 3534th maple skateboard producer in the world, or just order blank decks with our own graphic. We just simply wanted to make something different, something better, something unique.
Environment reason: Bamboo forest renews in 4-5 years after harvest.
In 2014 we started to use carbon fiber in 3 types of decks from our portfolio, to make their lifetime longer, to spare money for our users.
In the short future we are planning to organize workshops in our production place to let people insight to get physical experience how skateboards are made.
What about the minimum orders for a skateboard company or for someone that want to order some of your decks with a personal design. Explain how a collaboration with you can start.
The MOQ is 5 pieces. As we are a manufacturer, we also prefer to serve smaller quantities to more smaller teams, retailers. As you can see on our web-shop, we offer our decks with free delivery to European countries, so buyers don’t have to deal with extra costs on top.
Personal design is also manageable, but for that respect we need booking of min. 50 decks. Of course we make individual print even for 1 deck as well, for present or surprise purpose, and it is more expensive, but very special. Usually a group of friends are buying it for someone as birthday present.
If you have your own graphic on heat transfer sheet, then we can heat transfer them on decks as well.
The collaboration can be started first with an email to cirus@cirus.hu with details of inquire. If you need help to decide about choosing type of deck, then you can rely on us, we can help you.
What about your riders, who is in your team?
As I mentioned above one of them is Zsolt Karkossiák, whose name should be more familiars for skaters in Pro competitors.
Our new, and big help in Hungary is Zoltán Tűri as sponsored freestyle skateboarder with quite good international results.
Plans for the future?
To make Cirus Skateboards more well known in Europe.
Last words?
Thanks Luca a lot for your immediate replies and your support via your site!
VISIT and LIKE
www.cirus.hu
www.facebook.com/cirusskateboard
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